At Mathews Elementary School in Austin, Texas, 10 fifth grade girls are sitting cross-legged on the music room floor with closed eyes and hands folded in their laps, waiting for the egg timer to go off. Jeanne Demers, 47, a campus coordinator for GENaustin—the Girls Empowerment Network—is overseeing this “mindfulness” exercise, which is intended to give today’s text-crazy, over-stimulated, media-saturated kids a quiet, still moment in their hectic days. One girl swings her hair around, another peeks at her friends, but most of them look peaceful. When the egg timer goes off, they journal about what went through their minds during the three-minute “mindful listening” exercise.

Demers, a pretty, bright-eyed woman who looks a bit like Annette Bening, reports that this peacefulness did not come right away. “It was a hard sell at first, suggesting quiet and stillness to some of the girls I work with.”

Demers is trained in something called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a technique developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The Mathews girls took to mindful practice with interest and openness, but when instructing girls in some of her schools to “put on their quiet, still bodies and sit like queens,” they made every possible excuse why they couldn’t sit quietly with their eyes closed, alone with their own thoughts, for even one minute. They claimed it was “really awkward” and tried escaping to the bathroom, which showed Demers “how much they actually needed this!” Today, when she comes once a week with her Tibetan bowl (“the girls jockey for who gets to ring it this week”) and egg timer, “they won’t let me not do it.” Besides a bit of quiet time, what mindfulness really gives them, she has learned, is the ability to self-regulate their feelings and behavior by giving them a relationship with their own minds. “That,” says Jeanne Demers, “is social intelligence.”

When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they did not declare that all men are created equal and mindful, but they might well have in light of this growing phenomenon. “Mindfulness” in the form of meditation, yoga, centering prayer, and other mind-body practices, is sweeping across our stressed-out land like a great breath of fresh air. In addition to a growing number of public school districts, major corporations, prison systems, healthcare organizations, arms of the U.S. military—even our representatives on Capitol Hill—are turning to mindfulness practices to help meet the demands of our hyperkinetic world.

Our nonstop culture doesn’t lend itself to moments of restfulness. But even if you’re constantly on the go, these 10 meditation apps make it easy to take a few minutes to reflect: on the bus, during your lunch break, or while you’re catching up on quiet time at home.

According to the World Health Organization, the yearly cost of stress to American businesses is as high as $300 billion. Over the past 30 years, self-reported levels of stress have increased 18 percent for women and 25 percent for men. By all accounts, we have never been more maxed out or deficiently attentive in our nation’s history. Fortunately, help is on the way. “Mindfulness is the next great movement in the United States,” I’m told by Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). The author of A Mindful Nation, Ryan has become the foremost crusader for higher consciousness on Capitol Hill. When I ask the congressman whether mindfulness practice isn’t a bit, well, esoteric, for mainstream America, Ryan, a good-old-boy type with an easy manner, lets out a good laugh. “Go tell that to the Marines,” he says. “Go tell that to corporations like Proctor and Gamble, Target, General Mills. There is nothing esoteric about it. Mindfulness is completely simple. We’re talking about watching the breath here. There’s nothing un-American about that!”

Last year, Ryan founded what’s known as the Quiet Time Caucus on Capitol Hill. Once a week, 30 minutes of quiet time is made available in the speaker’s chapel just off the rotunda for anyone who wants it. The caucus has been a great success among members of both parties. Ryan explains, “There are no rules. You can meditate, you can pray, or stare into space. The only rule is you can’t talk.” He hopes that learning to be quiet together will help members of our gridlocked government to reconnect and find solutions to the nation’s problems. “There’s a great deal of frustration in Washington right now,” Ryan reminds me. “When our lawmakers can come together, and approach their jobs with a touch of mindfulness, everyone is bound to benefit.”

A mindfulness movement on Capitol Hill? What’s going on here? Something long overdue but not out of the ordinary, if you listen to advocates of the practice. “Mindfulness is an inherent human ability—something that we all have—to be fully attentive to where we are and what we are doing at any given moment,” says Barry Boyce, editor-in-chief of Mindful magazine.

“It’s a methodology that anyone can use,” adds Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. “You don’t have to have a belief system. It requires no faith or ideology. Mindfulness is as simple as watching your breath.” When she and her colleagues Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein returned from their travels in Asia 35 years ago and began informally sharing meditation practices learned from Buddhist teachers (“just because it was helping us so much”), mindfulness was a movement catering to the chosen few. Today, Salzberg’s nonstop travel schedule takes her to public schools, domestic violence shelters, hospitals, financial institutions, programs to help international humanitarian aid workers, and more. “I never thought I’d live to see the day,” Salzberg admits. “It’s amazing to see what’s happening.”

At Google, Chade-Meng Tan, one of the company’s earliest engineers (and founder of their Search Inside Yourself Program) compares this mainstreaming of “mind fitness” to the early days of the physical fitness movement in the U.S. “In the beginning, fitness was just for ‘nuts,’” says Meng (as Tan likes to be called). “Then in the 1920s, after it was studied, it became an established field. People knew it was good for them and learned how to do it. This revolution will happen in the same way. Mindfulness is ‘meta-fitness.’”

Hundreds of studies conclude that when we spend regular intervals being quiet, emptying our minds, relaxing our nervous systems, and raising awareness of what’s going on between our ears, we are, indeed, happier, healthier, more competent, helpful, empathic, and creative-minded people. Research suggests that mindfulness practices are useful in the treatment of pain, stress, anxiety, depressive relapse, disordered eating, and addiction.

Using the fMRI machine, neuroscientists have deduced that engagement in mindful thinking causes what they call a “left shift” in the brain. This results in increased activation of the brain’s left frontal regions, a process associated with more positive emotional states. Richard Davidson, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has studied the effects of meditation on the brain for 30 years. “Mindfulness practices can actually change the function and structure of the brain,” Davidson explains. “We have the ability to regulate both attention and emotion, both of which are more flexible and plastic than we had previously considered. In other words, our behavior can literally help shape the structure and functioning of our own brains.”

Proponents of mindfulness hope that practice will ultimately lead to paradigmatic shifts in how we do business. According to Meng, mindfulness is perfectly compatible with a more enlightened approach to capitalism. Yes, it’ll always be a dog-eat-dog world, but “people play sports among friends,” he points out. “It’s competitive but not in a negative way. The key is to compete in ways that consciously create the greater good. We must remember that the human mind can be fundamentally upgraded in a way that’s good for the individual, good for business, and good for the world all at once.”

“Finding the win-win-win is the way,” agrees Janice Marturano, a vice-president at General Mills and now head of the Institute for Mindful Leadership. “People today are double-booked and living on auto pilot. What I hear over and over again from leaders around the world, when they’re asked what the one thing is that they most need to be the kind of leader they want to be, they all say space. When we begin to transform our organizations and communities, we also transform the way in which we meet our lives.” Marturano suggests that we begin by taking what she calls “purposeful pauses” during the day. “Purposeful pauses don’t add time to your day,” Marturano is quick to acknowledge, “but they do encourage us to find those moments in the day when we can reset. The body gets rest, the mind gets rest, and this space makes a big difference in how exhausted we are at the end of the day.”

Facing a record suicide rate and thousands of veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress, the U.S. military has begun testing a series of brain calming exercises called Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (or M-Fit). “The data support it,” retired Major General Melvin Spiese told NBC news. Spiese was convinced after looking at the scientific research and taking M-Fit himself. “While teaching troops to shoot makes them a better warfighter, teaching mindfulness makes them a better person by helping them to decompress, which could have lasting effects,” he went on to say. Such as performing more effectively on the battlefield. Such as improving cognitive function. “It’s like doing pushups for the brain,” Major Spiese has said.

Back in Austin, Jeanne Demers is inspired about going even further with mindfulness practice with her clubGEN girls next year. “It’s exciting,” she says, “because they get it. They’re like little scientists, these girls, observing and noticing what they’re giving their attention to. That ability allows for so much—in every aspect of their lives. It’s a total game changer.”

]]>Breathing Lessonshttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/08/22/in-the-magazine/health-in-the-magazine/breathing-lessons.html
Thu, 22 Aug 2013 18:46:55 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=91441There are many approaches to mindfulness, but here is a good place to start.

There are many approaches to mindfulness, but here is a good place to start.

1. Find a quiet place. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Take a few moments to simply be. Notice whatever is happening inside you and in your environment—sounds, physical sensations, thoughts, feelings—without trying to do anything about it. Continue this for five minutes or so.

2. Now bring your attention to the breath. Simply notice the breath as it moves in and out though your nostrils. Don’t try to manipulate it in any way.

3. The mind will wander. This doesn’t matter. Each time you notice you are no longer observing the breath, this is a moment of mindfulness. Simply bring your attention back to the in-breath and out-breath.

4. Allow thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations to come and go. Notice that when you allow these “interferences” to arise without pursuing them, that they pass away naturally of their own accord. There is no need to push, resist, or fight with the mind. This only creates more distraction.

5. Stay awhile. Remain sitting with eyes closed for 10 more minutes (15 minutes total). Use an egg timer to keep time for you—this will free you from the need to watch the clock. Once the timer goes off, take two to three minutes to record your experience in a “mindfulness journal.” Repeat this practice once a day for a month. After one month, increase your sitting time to 20 minutes.

In time, you will notice the great benefits of this simple practice, which can be done anywhere at any time. You will become aware of the tendencies of your mind, how it resists certain experiences and tries to hold onto others, how it becomes tangled up in thinking and prevents you from being able to focus. The more sensitive you become to these tendencies, the clearer and more balanced your mental state will be.

]]>Mark Matousek explores the growing popularity of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR, in “Time Out!” (September/October 2013). Learn more about MBSR in an interview with creator Jon Kabat-Zinn. Then, take a peek inside Google headquarters as he leads a session on mindfulness with the tech giant’s employees. For more help in mindfulness, see our “Top 10 Apps for Meditation.”

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

A brief interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Have you ever wanted to take a peek inside Google headquarters? You’re in luck! Watch Kabat-Zinn lead a session on mindfulness at the tech giant’s offices.

]]>Top 10 Apps for Meditationhttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/08/14/health-and-family/tech/meditation-apps.html
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=89785Our nonstop culture doesn’t lend itself to moments of restfulness. But even if you’re constantly on the go, these 10 meditation apps make it easy to take a few minutes to reflect: on the bus, during your lunch break, or while you’re catching up on quiet time at home.

]]>Our nonstop, go-go-go culture doesn’t lend itself to moments of mindfulness. But even if you’re constantly on the go, these top 10 meditation apps make it easy to take a few minutes to reflect: on the bus, during your lunch break, or while you’re catching up on quiet time at home.

Meditation Apps for iOS

These apps will help guide you through meditation, even if you’re constantly on the go.

The Smiling Mind
Developed by a team of psychologists, this app is modern meditation for children and adults. For the meditation novice (or those who find themselves easily distracted) this might be the best app to begin your journey into mindfulness.

Relax with Andrew Johnson Lite
Highly recommended as a sleep aid by its users, the guided meditation in this app helps you do exactly what its name implies: Relax. Even clinical hypnotherapist Andrew Johnson’s instructions are calming, accompanied by a soft, slow keyboard.

Mind
For the more experienced meditator, this meditation timer is as simple and beautiful as they come. Set it anywhere between 1 to 60 minutes, and then, as the screen reminds you, just relax and focus on your breathing.

Take a Break!
The guided meditations in this app come with plenty of options. Choose between a seven-minute work break or a 13-minute deep-stress reliever. Then select music, nature sounds, or silence to accompany the calm female voice that guides you through meditation. (The volume of the voice and the accompanying sounds can be adjusted separately.)

Omvana
Called the “Spotify of Meditation,” this app allows you to mix and match thousands of different guided meditations and ambient sounds. You can even record your voice on the app to create and mix your own personal meditations.

Meditation Apps for Android

Dharma Meditation Trainer
This silent meditation app encourages you to spend five minutes a day in quiet reflection. Offering philosophical quotes for use as mantras or meditation phrases, a solid week of meditation helps you move up through 10 levels of partially-guided meditation. Timer and sound options are customizable.

Nature Sounds Relax and Sleep
Designed by Zodinplex, this app has 12 different recorded natural sounds that can be used for timed meditation or an alarm clock. The latter takes a bit of trouble to set up, though.

Meditation Helper
For the no-frills meditation practitioner, this silent app is a handy customizable timer with optional bells at the start, end, or every 15 minutes of your meditation time. No pictures, no nature sounds, just the sweet song of silence.

Relax Melodies: Sleep and Yoga
You might spend more time playing with this interactive app than you will meditating to it, but if you’re a music-oriented meditator it’s one of the best choices in free app offerings. Pre-loaded with 16 sounds, you can combine the tracks to personalize your zen style. Click piano, and then add an orchestra or the sound of rain. You can also download additional sounds and customize the timer for as much or as little time as you like.

Meditation Apps for iOS and Android

Headspace-on-the-go
For the goal-oriented meditator, this app offers daily meditations to aid with focus, creativity, sleep, addiction, and more. Sign up for a free trial of 10-minute sessions for 10 days. Or pay a low monthly fee to access all 270 hours of guided mediation.

]]>The New Urban Hermithttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/06/04/in-the-magazine/trends-and-opinions/urban-hermit.html
Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=84463What does it mean to seek the contemplative life in a modern and increasingly connected world?

During the years he was a hermit, Roger Cunningham followed a rigid and self-imposed daily schedule. He began the morning by walking to the nearby general store for coffee. “I had promised my mother that I would have regular contact with someone each day,” he says. “She was concerned I’d be too isolated.” Then, back in his hermitage, a farm near Nicholville, New York, he began 45 minutes of Zen meditation at 7:00. After breakfast, he worked alone in some of the 50 separate gardens that constitute his farm. Then came a lunch break, followed by more gardening. He maintained silence throughout, with no use of the phone, radio, or TV, which ensured, he says, that “everything I did was in the same frame of mind.” After dinner, he allowed himself some phone calls and blogging in the evening. The day ended for Cunningham with a final 45-minute session of meditation before bed. One day a week he devoted to work on the nonprofit organization he directed that distributed produce from his gardens to food banks in the area.

Across the country, Sister Laurel O’Neal, who is a member of the Camaldolese Benedictine order, follows a different hermit’s routine. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment in California’s populous Bay Area. She attends morning mass, sometimes runs errands in the afternoons, gives spiritual direction to clients in personal meetings, blogs, and plays violin in an orchestra every week. But most of her time, as someone officially designated a hermit by her order, she spends in contemplation and prayer.

Like Cunningham and O’Neal, many modern hermits—people who make the silence of solitude, and the spiritual contemplation it allows, a central part of their existence—seem determined to shatter our preconceptions of how hermits live. Many reside in or near towns and cities, support themselves with some kind of work, and mix at least occasionally with other people. Most importantly, they bear no resemblance to the misanthropes, survivalists, and social outcasts and failures we sometimes associate with hermit life.

On the contrary, today’s hermits lay claim to old spiritual traditions. Like early Chinese sages and medieval Christian monks who found enlightenment in solitude, modern hermits make time for assiduous prayer and lengthy spiritual contemplation. They have reclaimed the ancient Greek root of the word hermit—eremia, meaning desert, drawing from the experiences of Saint Anthony and other early Christians who discovered the divine in desert isolation. Nowadays few hermits live in the desert, but they hear the same siren call. “That call is so imperative you have little hope of ignoring it,” reports one solitary who wrote in Raven’s Bread, an internationally distributed newsletter for hermits. “But once embraced, there is true joy (after many inner battles) as you find your true center and heart’s desire.”

Cunningham, 59, came to a hermit’s life via the roundabout route that carried him through early retirement from a career as a social worker, a difficult divorce, the purchase of his farm in the Adirondack Mountains on a road that saw only about 10 cars a day and spent months under deep snow, and travels around the world. He then felt the urge to slow himself down, and he became a practitioner of the Zen style of meditation. The mindfulness that the practice of Zen Buddhism encourages drew him in. “I found I was leaving my farm less and less. I realized that what I was doing there was like what happens in a hermitage,” he recalls. “So I decided to formalize it and develop a rigid practice of meditation that demanded 12 hours of silence six days a week.” A new hermit was born.

What are modern hermits setting out to do? “Basically, nothing,” observe Karen and Paul Fredette, the publishers of Raven’s Bread, in a book they’ve written about hermitic life. “Nothing unusual, that is. Hermits live ordinary lives but with an extraordinary motivation.”

Several years ago the Fredettes surveyed their Raven’s Bread readers—who now number more than 1,500—to discover trends and similarities in their lives. “These people live the majority of their time alone. They treasure silence in solitude,” Karen Fredette notes. The survey’s findings from 122 responses: 60 percent were women; the respondents came from a mix of Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Sufi, and Buddhist religious backgrounds; and most were middle-aged or older. “You can do it in an apartment in New York City, and some of our readers do, or in the suburbs. Most prefer not to be known as hermits, and their outward appearance does not draw attention,” she says. “Some live in groups and support one another by gathering together once a week, but they live in solitude most of the time.” Others maintain a hermitic life while caring for older relatives, or even while married.

Cunningham says he treasured his silent hours of solitude as a hermit, “when I became totally aware of my oneness with the world and never felt detached from my surroundings. I believe that the common way of thinking of myself as a separated individual identity, disconnected from what’s all around me, is an illusion. It takes me down a road toward suffering. The only way for me to see the illusion was to join myself with the birds, and nature, and my surroundings, with no separation. Turning over my farm’s soil, becoming mindful of the textures of the soil, hearing the birds, seeing the trees, and feeling the wind and perspiration on my cheek—it all put me in the present, the here and now, which I recognized was the whole point of my Zen practice. ”

It’s an old impulse. “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind,” wrote Henry David Thoreau, one of America’s best-known seekers of solitude, in the 19th century. Living in the 1840s in a cabin he built on Walden Pond in Massachusetts, Thoreau maintained his close ties with family and friends as he made time to be alone and study his place in the natural world. “Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations,” he wrote. He believed he could emerge from his two-year solitude “a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.”

Thoreau physically distanced himself from society, but many contemporary hermits do not. “Living separate from society doesn’t mean never seeing anybody,” Fredette, herself a former hermit, explains. “On the other hand, having a TV running all day is not helpful to the hermit life. It involves wanting a simplicity of life, and it demands self-discipline and a positive self-image. When you’re living alone, there’s only one person to deal with all day, so you’d better like yourself.”